Home Is Where
by HuskerCat
Summary: Margaret got sick.  Don came home.
1. Prologue

**Author's Note: This is a sequel to my story "The Weekend" and while it isn't absolutely necessary to read that story for this one to make ****sense, it certainly helps. **

**This story has been a long time in coming; the RW kept getting in the way.**

**So, without further ado, "Home Is Where..."**

What do you pack?

He looked around his bedroom, their bedroom and contemplated all the stuff. His stuff. Her stuff. Their stuff. He didn't quite know where to begin. But he had to start. He was leaving for good in a couple of days and he needed to be packed and ready before the moving van arrived.

He sighed. Clothes. He would need his clothes. He moved over to his dresser and started emptying the drawers on to the bed. Stacks of underwear and socks. Tee-shirts, shorts and polo shirts. He turned to his half of the closet, laying out his dress shirts, suits and ties. He saw the dry cleaning bag on the floor of the closet and looked in. A couple of suits and shirts that needed to go to the cleaners. He'd need to make sure to drop them off in the morning so that they'd be ready before he left. And he needed to remember to pick up what was already there so he could pack those clothes as well.

He flopped on the opposite side of the bed, looking at the piles of clothes he'd laid out. When did he become such a clothes horse? Back in his Fugitive Recovery days, he only needed a couple of pairs of jeans, a couple of shirts and some socks and underwear. And now… All this? He sat up and groaned. It would all need to be packed. And he didn't think he even **owned** enough suitcases to put it all in.

He got up from the bed. He'd figure out his clothes. He went out to the living room, surveying the space. His eyes fell on his CD collection. That he could pack. His music was completely separate from Kim's. He grabbed two boxes and sat down on the floor in front of his collection and carefully, in reverse order, set each disc in the box. Once he finished that task, relieved that at least something was done, he moved to his books. He carefully sorted through the titles, keeping some to take to the house with him with others packed to go in to storage.

He leaned back against the couch, shut his eyes and exhaled. He didn't know how he was going to make it work. There was no way that even his pared down stuff was going to fit in to the Craftsman, in to his childhood room. He was going to need to pare it down even more.

He ran his fingers through his hair and looked around again.

What did you pack when you were moving home again?

What the hell did you pack?


	2. You Breathe

He pulled into the driveway and brought the rumbling SUV to a halt. He turned off the engine and just sat for a moment, closing his eyes. He'd been driving for so long that he could still feel the road vibrations pulsing through his body. He took a breath and opened his door, climbing down from the seat. He came around the front and saw his sister heading towards him from the porch. She reached him and wrapped her arms around him. He returned the embrace, holding her close.

"You're really home? To stay?" she whispered into his chest.

"You know I'm going to get my own place," he said softly.

"But you're staying. You're not going back and forth to Albuquerque or whatever anymore."

He sighed. "I'm not. I'm here." He kissed the top of her head.

"Good," she said, burrowing tighter into his chest.

He kept hold of her. His sister had been in contact with him much more frequently in the past weeks. Instead of the weekly (or so) phone calls or emails that he used to get, she'd been calling almost daily. He made every effort to talk to her when she called; not letting her go to his voicemail. Sometimes she seemed to just want to check in; other days she would go on and on, needing to share her day, her life. He realized that she was used to doing that with their parents; that she was really the only kid at home. And that right now she didn't feel like she could do that. Or should.

He shut his eyes, took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. He hadn't had that role in a long time; being the go-to, every day big brother. And he needed to get used to it again. He took another deep breath, opened his eyes and looked up. He saw his father coming down the steps of the front porch. In a few steps, he was in front of him. He felt his father's hand rest on his shoulder. "Donnie," he said softly.

"Hey, Dad."

"Your trip was alright? You didn't push too hard, did you?"

A small, tight smile crossed his face. "It's okay, Dad. I'm fine." He saw the doubt on his father's face. "Really. I'm used to it."

His Dad shook his head. "Right." He looked over at his daughter. "Why don't you let your brother go inside and use the bathroom so that we can get to unloading the car." He looked back at Don. "You don't want to have to pay an extra day on the car rental if you don't have to."

He gave his father a strange look. "Huh?"

"If you take even part of an extra day on a rental…"

"I know how rentals work, " he interrupted. "But that," he gestured to the SUV, "is not a rental."

His sister looked over to the vehicle. "You actually drive that? Like every day?"

"Yeah," he answered incredulously.

She gave the big black SUV the once over. "Does it come with its own black helicopter?"

"That's the CIA. I'm FBI," he deadpanned.

She squinted her eyes at him, trying to tell if he was serious. "Really?"

"Gullible," he muttered. He didn't want either of them to know, or even think about, what he sometimes **did** carry in the back of his SUV. He didn't think that anyone in his family would be comfortable with **that** knowledge.

"Ha ha," she said.

"Okay. Enough you two," his father said. "Julie, let him go. Don, inside. We still need to get it unpacked, rental or not."

She took a step back. "I'm glad you're here," she whispered for only him to hear.

He looked away. "Yeah," he said softly. And then he added loud enough for both of them to hear, "Don't try to unload until I come back. There's a method to how everything is in there."

His father shook his head again. "This from the same person who couldn't find his bedroom floor for three months."

He rolled his eyes. Did parents ever forget anything that you did that could be used against you? "I was, like ten at the time."

His father waved his hands at him, meaning to shoo him to the house. "Go," he said. "We won't touch anything. We promise."

He thought about giving some kind of wiseass response, but decided against it and instead turned towards the porch and headed up the steps. As he went to open the door, he noticed the book sitting on the small table. So, that's how she was there almost as soon as he pulled in the driveway; she'd been sitting there, reading, waiting for him. For a moment, he wondered how long she'd sat there, but that thought was gone as soon as he opened the door.

He was home. It didn't matter whether he was at Quantico, living in Detroit, Albuquerque, D.C. or roaming the country. He'd always thought of this house as home. But even though he thought that, believed that, he never actually thought that he would ever live here again. He visited here. He had his memories here, but live? No.

It crashed into him. He **was** living here again. It wasn't a couple of bags that they were going to unload from his SUV; not the stuff of a couple weeks visit. It was his stuff – the things that he needed for everyday living, for going to work, for his down time. He glanced up and saw a picture of himself as a kid, maybe ten or eleven, on the ski slope. A picture that he'd seen a thousand times. All of a sudden, he bolted for the bathroom.

A moment later, he was sitting on the bathroom floor, back against the green tile wall. He realized as soon as he reached the bathroom that he wasn't going to be sick, but the near panic attack was unsettling. He struggled to catch his breath. "What the hell," he mumbled. This was the third time he'd been back since he'd made the decision to move home and it had never hit him like this before. Not when his mom had surgery. Not when he met with the Bureau Director to discuss his transfer. He leaned his head back, feeling the cool tiles against his head and neck. "Pull it together, Eppes," he told himself. "Get your shit together." He pushed himself up from the floor, went to the sink and splashed some cold water on his face. He rested his hands on the sink and took a deep breath. "You can do this," he told himself, pushing himself away from the sink.

He opened the bathroom door, headed down the hall to the porch and out the door. "Okay. Let's get it unpacked."


	3. Your Stuff Is

They spent the next hour unloading the boxes, suitcases and bags from the back of the massive vehicle and carrying them up to his room. At one point, after countless trips up and down the stairs, he realized that it was just the three of them; Charlie was nowhere around. "Where in the hell is Chuck?" he asked. "He's never around when the grunt work needs to get done."

His father turned away from the box he was about to grab and leaned against the side of the SUV. "He's at school – teaching."

He rolled his eyes. "Yeah, right. It's Saturday."

Alan wiped his brow with his sleeve. "Once a month they have a seminar with the graduate teaching assistants in the department. They meet on Saturdays to avoid conflicts with other classes."

"And it just happens to be **this **Saturday," he said skeptically.

"They've moved it a couple of times already for Charlie. They couldn't move it again."

"Lucky him," Julie muttered. She leaned against the car door near her father. "How much stuff do you have in here anyway?"

"Just my life," he thought. "Only what would fit," he actually said.

"Well, I guess it's a good thing for you that you drive something this big, then. But I think Dad and I would have been better off if you still drove that old VW bug," she replied.

He smiled. "You actually remember my VW?

"I remember when you took me for rides in it when I was little." She paused. "What ever happened to it?

"The clutch finally completely went and it just wasn't worth fixing anymore," he sighed. "I really liked that car."

"Well, it would probably fit inside this beast," she said, peering back into the interior of the SUV, checking to see how much there was still to unpack.

"We're almost done," Alan responded, noticing her examination. "Probably just a few more trips each."

"Good. I don't know how many more times I can go up and down those stairs." She pushed a few loose strands of her dark hair out of her face.

He grabbed another box from the back. "You're young. You'll be fine."

She wrinkled her nose at him. "It's a good thing I like you."

He smiled back at her. A real, honest smile. "I like you, too." He went back inside.

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She pulled her sweater tight around her and leaned against the doorframe, watching him. He was stretched out on his bed, face buried in his pillow, boxes and bags strewn around him. She felt a hand on her shoulder, massaging the tight muscles. "You know," he said quietly, "I don't think he'd appreciate us watching him sleep."

"Then he should have shut the door," she whispered, never taking her eyes off him. "He looks so tired."

"It's been a long couple of days for him." He tucked one of her curls back behind her ear. "Are you okay?" he asked softly. "We tried to keep it quiet, to not wake you up."

She nodded. "I'm fine." She could feel his expression change to doubt without even looking at him. "All things considered," she added. "And you didn't wake me up. I can't sleep **all** the time." She shifted so that she was leaning against him instead of the doorframe. "Has he eaten yet?"

He shook his head. "Not yet. I ordered Chinese. It'll be here soon."

"His first night home and you got take-out? Really?"

He shrugged. "He said he was fine with it." He wrapped his arm around her shoulders. "Are you going to eat with us?"

"I think so. What did you order?"

"Egg drop soup…"

"It's slimy," she interrupted. "I don't know why anyone would eat that."

"It's for Julie and I. I got wonton for you and Don. And by the way, neither of you knows what you're missing."

"We're missing slimy soup. Soup should never be slimy"

He chuckled softly. She was sounding a little feisty; more like herself than she had in a while. "You don't have to eat it. It's why I got you the wonton. I also ordered some egg rolls, moo shoo pork, beef and broccoli, sesame chicken and shrimp with lobster sauce. Oh and fried rice."

"So all the food groups are covered."

"Only the best," he said softly.

Her focus turned back to the darkened room as he shifted in his sleep. "You know, if he gets up half asleep he's going to kill himself on all those boxes. Why didn't at least some of them get put in the closet? I mean I know it isn't that big, but still…"

He didn't really want to answer her. "Well, he didn't want us to. He wanted to take care of it himself…"

She could hear the stall tactic in his voice. "Why doesn't he want the boxes to go in the closet? I mean I know he's more obsessive about these things than he was as a kid, but come on now."

He kept silent, wishing she would drop it, but knowing full well that she wouldn't.

"Alan?"

He sighed. He didn't want to bring this up with her, but he was going to have to. "I talked to him, when he first decided that he was coming home." He paused. "About his gun…"

"Oh, Alan. You didn't start with him about that again, did you?"

"I didn't start anything," he said calmly. "I just wanted to make sure that the safety issue was handled. I mean with Julie and her friends…I just wanted to make sure that there was never going to be a problem." He sighed again. "He told me that he would take care of it, that he knew what to do. Well, he did take care of it." He looked at his son. "He didn't want us to put the boxes in the closet ourselves because he put a gun locker in there and he needs to arrange everything so that he can get to it easily." He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. He **hated** the fact that the locker was attached to the house, bolted to the closet wall, a permanent fixture. He'd wanted to say something, make some comment, when Don told him it was there, but he'd bitten his tongue. He'd expressed his concern to Don; Don told him he'd take care of it, and he did. He then had no right to say anything, to be upset. But still…In his house…

"When did he do it?" she whispered.

"The last time he was here," he responded.

"I didn't realize…"

"I didn't know either until today. I know it's a special locker, bolted to the wall with a combination lock. And no, I don't know the combination and I don't want to know," he said softly but firmly.

"Well, then," she whispered. This was real, permanent. She looked away.

He gently rubbed her arm. He then took a step forward, reached for the door handle and pulled the door shut. "I'll wake him up when the food gets here," he said softly.

She nodded, kissed his cheek and then headed back to her room, closing the door behind her.


End file.
